The Wasteland
by AVMabs
Summary: Caleb struggles between a rock and a hard place.


**Rating: **T  
**Warnings: **(For this chapter) Violence, Alcohol, Implied Sex References  
**Summary: **Caleb struggles between a rock and a hard place.  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own Casualty or any affiliates

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The ED was brought from frantic stupor by the sound of a door's hinges screaming their displeasure at being swung to slam. Ethan sighed, baring holes into his brother's forehead. Cal blinked back at him.

"What?" he snapped, and threw a nonchalant glance in Connie's direction.

"I think you know what."

Cal scowled at his brother. "Is this over the shoes?" he hissed.

Ethan skimmed a thumb over the touchscreen of his phone. "Look at this," he said, showing his brother a photo of a sleek black high heel, carelessly wrapped up in one of Cal's shirts. "That's our _boss_, Caleb. You are sleeping with our _boss_."

"Shh!" Cal hissed, and slung an arm around Ethan's shoulder, turning him away from the rest of the department. He leaned in and whispered. "I _slept _with our boss. Once. Passe Composé and all. We both knew it was just going to happen the once."

"Are you two actually going to work today or is it just going to be me covering for everyone again?"

Cal retracted his arm and spun around, masquerading as an innocent with his toothy smile stretched paper-thin across thick rudders of real man. "I'm sure we'll manage to get something done, Lily."

Ethan aimed a sigh at Cal's forehead. "Sorry, Lily."

Lily stalked off, leaving a trail of irritation lingering behind her. Ethan basked in it, allowing it to imbue him with power. "Good job, Caleb."

Cal snorted, attention fixed on Connie's office door. He glared at it until he was certain Ethan had followed Lily's trail, and then he sidled up to it and made his presence known.

"Come in," said Connie, though she did not look up from her files, nor smile, nor acknowledge that anybody had entered the room. Cal stood before her, his masquerade still in place and not to be pulled or torn by honest movement of mouth. "Dr Knight, I'm very busy. If you want something please do tell, otherwise you can leave."

Cal sealed the toothy masquerade, lips closing into a smirk. "You seemed angry when you came in, so if this is about last night…"

"Dr Knight!" Cal's masquerade was ripped from forehead to chin, and he jerked his head up and could do nothing but feel as his grin fell into his throat. "I am well aware of the conditions of our arrangement. Bring it up again and I promise you'll be out of a job."

Cal scoffed: the intent of his breath as sour as vomit. "The last time you said that…"

"The last time I said that, we didn't have serious cuts to our funding. Ask security; I've already cut three of them." Connie's body slumped slightly as though her puppeteer had relaxed her strings. "Shut the door behind you, please."

This time, Cal did.

**O**

Three weeks later, Connie did not slam her office door. She staggered inside and took it towards herself, leaving it hanging slightly ajar. Zoe took a glance inside, where it seemed the Queen's moat had flooded its banks. She closed the door. Connie did not move.

Zoe cast her eyes to Cal, whose eyes were drawn to Connie as if by rope. He drummed on the table as if in a trance. "Dr Knight," she said. "Don't you have patients to treat?"

Cal came to look at her as if taken from deep thought. "Yeah. Going now."

A week later, and it seemed that Connie remained in the same position every minute she wasn't treating patients.

Ethan sighed. He had so wanted a second opinion on Mrs Myers in Cubicle 4, but alas – she was discharged into the care of her daughter without one. He bustled through the department, shimmying around his more aggressive patients with a glass foot. Unfortunately – as we all know – glass is rather easily shattered.

"Right," he said, "Mr Roberts…" He chanced a smile. Mr Roberts belched. Ethan sighed. "How much have you had to drink?"

Mr Roberts shrugged, gaping. A thin string of vomit infused drool hung from his mouth like spider's silk.

"D-do you have a medical complaint?"

Mr Roberts was silent. Ethan shuffled over to take his pulse, and the man started to cackle. "Started to sober up! 15 years trying to stop and I get nothing for my effort!"

Ethan blinked, struck dumb in the centre of the room. "We can refer you programmes and- and support groups for people who are struggling with…"

"Struggling!" The man scoffed. "Get my bag, will you, doc?"

Ethan stumbled over himself to fulfil the man's wishes, and presented the black fabric lump to him. The man fumbled around in it as if burgling an unfamiliar home. Finally, he found his prize: a large bottle of vodka. Ethan pricked up slightly.

"I- uh. You can't have that in here."

The man unscrewed the cap and took a swig.

"Would you give the bottle to me, please?"

The man, unamused, screwed the cap back onto the bottle. He gripped it tightly enough that one might think he was culling a chicken, were it not vodka in his hands.

Ethan held both his hands out – a tentative welcome to an unfamiliar family 'friend'. "That's it."

In a swift motion, the man raised the bottle above Ethan's head. "I'm armed!" he shouted.

Ethan staggered backwards, the back of his skull safe for the time being. "Could I please have some help in here?"

In a flurry, the man was surrounded by two more bodies of weak flesh like Ethan's. Cal and Rita planted their feet into the ground before him, furious and delighted in equal measure by the adrenaline rush. Cal fixed a stare on Ethan, who was standing in the corner of the room with wide eyes and parted lips. His hands were making minute vibrations against his thighs. Rita glared at Mr Roberts, her lips a thin line for him to toe.

"Give me the vodka, and we won't have any issues. Understand?" She crossed her arms.

The man cackled once more, this time broken by a loud amalgamation of hiccup, belch and retch. Rita thrust a kidney bowl into his lap and stepped back. Cal wrinkled his nose. When he had finished, the man smiled up at Rita. A chunk of vomit was lodged in the space that would once have been filled by his top right canine, and a sheen of saliva shined his teeth.

"That's disgusting," muttered Cal. "Look, just give me the bottle, alright? We'll keep it safe for you and you'll get it back when we discharge you."

Mr Roberts was still. He did not speak or move. The grin lay plastered on his face, but his eyes were glassy. Cal frowned over at Ethan.

"Mr Roberts?" said Rita. Mr Roberts blinked twice.

Cal took his face to eye level with the man. "Mr…"

The bottle in Mr Robert's hand flew upwards and then downwards upon Cal's head. Glass shattered around him, and the first trickle of blood made its way from the middle of his scalp to the collar of his shirt, giving the odd yet distinct impression that the affected patches of his hair should have been appearing a rusty orange. He did not move.

Rita yanked open the curtain to the cubicle. "Someone call security _now _– tell them they're really needed! And we need another Doctor in here!"

Ethan knelt down in front of Cal and shined his penlight in Cal's eyes. "Pupillary response is normal," he murmured, before being interrupted by the clacking of heels on the hard floor.

"What's happened?" said Connie. She looked stricken.

A long, low groan came from the floor. "Yeah," said Cal – his voice gruff and confused, but no worse for wear – "can somebody please tell me?"

All of Ethan's air escaped him, as though someone had stuck a pin into a football. "Mr Roberts hit you over the head with his bottle." He frowned. "That," he said, pointing to the gash on the top of Cal's head, "is going to need stitches."

Connie huffed and crossed her arms. "Right. A nurse can do those. Get back to work, Dr Hardy." She made her way over to Cal. "Can you stand?"

Cal nodded, the palm of his hand covering his wound. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Connie's expression did not want for sullenness. "Good. Once you've finished wasting NHS resources, I expect you back at work." She stalked from the cubicle, right hand pinned to her stomach by left elbow.

Cal pushed himself up, staggering slightly. He stared after her.

Ethan sighed.

**O**

Stitched and lucid, Cal made his way back to cubicles. He opened the curtain to Cubicle 4 to reveal a little boy and his mother. Her nostrils were flared, and her lips were pulled taut across her face, stretched thin and wide. "Right," he glanced at his notes, "Daniel."

The woman stood up. "We have been waiting here for _half an hour _and nobody's seen to my son! He's a little boy and he's in pain!"

Cal smiled as though it would diffuse the situation. "Sorry about that. I was held up by a bit of an incident."

The boy moaned from the bed and his mother quickly attended to him, brushing his hair back from his forehead and kissing his cheek.

"That's quite the temperature, Daniel."

Daniel whimpered.

"Right, l-let me just…" Cal trailed off, his right hand coming up to rest on the bridge of his nose. He hissed through his teeth. He felt like a pendulum, swinging between the pain in his head and the illness of the boy before him.

"Doctor?"

"I j-j-j…" He was stuck on the 'j' like a scratched CD. "Uh…"

The woman looked around wildly. "Doctor Knight?"

Cal doubled over and vomited on the cubicle floor.

**O**

Cal opened his eyes. The world around him shimmered and rippled silver and white and _red_, red where all he could see was pain reverberating through his head and out through his eyes because every beam of light intensified the pain like seismic tremors on a logarithmic scale. He groaned and felt a pressure pushing down on his shoulder.

"No," he whispered, "no, no. God can't take me yet."

The sound of the Devil's feet clacking over the floor made him sob great heaving sobs where he lay. She cast a shadow over him and, in a strange show of kindness-

"M-m-manip-p-pulating m-me!"

-brushed Cal's hair back and planted a kiss on his forehead.

"He certainly can't. I need you paying child support."

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**Author's Note: **I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this!


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